Betty MacDonald Fan Club. Join fans of the beloved writer Betty MacDonald (1907-58). The original Betty MacDonald Fan Club and literary Society. Welcome to Betty MacDonald Fan Club and Betty MacDonald Society - the official Betty MacDonald Fan Club Website with members in 40 countries.
Betty MacDonald, the author of The Egg and I and the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Series is beloved all over the world. Don't miss Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald biography and his very witty interviews on CD and DVD!

In the footsteps of Betty MacDonald: New owners take on rural life with Egg and I Farm

Phil Vogelzang takes down cattle fencing on the Chimacum farm
where "The Egg and I" author Betty MacDonald lived in the 1920s.
Vogelzang purchased the property with three family members in mid-March
from Pat and Jess Bondurant, who raised beef cattle. -- Photo by
Jennifer Jackson/Peninsula Daily News

CHIMACUM — If you had asked Phil Vogelzang a year ago if he'd ever heard of Betty MacDonald, he'd have said no.

Ma and Pa Kettle?

Rings a faint bell, he would have answered.

So when Vogelzang, 49, saw a listing for a 20-acre farm for sale on Egg and I Road, he had no clue where the name came from.

"I thought, 'That's a funny name for a road," he said.

Vogelzang
is now a lot more familiar with Betty MacDonald, having purchased,
along with family members, the farm where the author of The Egg and I lived in the late 1920s.

The
new owners have named their purchase the Egg and I Farm after the book,
and in some ways, are following in the footsteps of its former owner.

The daughter of a mining engineer, she was born Anne Elizabeth Campbell Bard on March 26, 1907, in Boulder, Colo.

After graduating from Roosevelt High School in Seattle, she moved with her mother to the Chimacum Valley after her father died.

In
1927, she married Robert Heskett with whom she had two children. They
divorced in 1935, and she married Donald C. MacDonald in 1942.

The couple moved to Vashon Island, and starting with The Egg and I, published in 1945, MacDonald wrote three other books based on her life, plus the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series for children.

She died of cancer in Seattle in 1958 at age of 50.

Flash forward 50 years to 2008 and the new owners of the homestead that inspired MacDonald to write The Egg and I.

"We're rank beginners," Vogelzang said of farming. "We have no experience."

Located
on a ridge between Beaver Valley and Center Road, the farm was a
homestead with 40 acres when 19-year-old Betty Bard married Heskett.

Heskett's
dream — to become the egg czar of Puget Sound — crashed and burned
along with the marriage, an experience his ex-wife turned to humorous
account in a novel 20 years later.

The goal of the new owners — Vogelzang and spouse, Katy McCoy, her sister, Melinda McCoy and husband, Peter — is less grandiose.

They want to grow as much of their own food as possible.

They're thinking vegetable gardens, fruit trees, maybe even a cow.

And of course, chickens.

"Certainly eggs and chickens will be in the mix," Vogelzang said.

The house that Betty lived in is long gone, but Egg and I fans continued to knock on the door of Jess and Pat Bondurant, the farm's former owners who lived there 32 years.

The
book is especially popular in Europe — Germany has the largest Betty
MacDonald fan club in the world — and Pat Bondurant has had phone calls
from Heidelberg, inviting her and her husband to fly over and help
celebrate the author's birthday.

Last fall, BBC Radio 4 sent a
program staff member from England to Chimacum to tape interviews with
Pat Bondurant and longtime Chimacum residents, Aldena Bishop and George
Huntingford.

Family members moving
Members of the family who has purchased the farm will move there this
summer, when Peter Walchenbach. a special education teacher at Ocosta
High School, finishes the school year.

He'll be moving with his wife, Melinda McCoy, daughter Flora, 7, and son Oscar, 5.

Vogelzang,
a radiologist, and wife, Katy, a physician-turned-artist, plan to come
over from Seattle as much as possible, he said.

"Peter and I have been looking for property where we can farm on a small scale," Vogelzang said.

"It's sort of our dream."

Vogelzang
said he never considered that their "quiet little parcel in the
country" would have a theme other than local, sustainable food
production.

But since learning that the farm had a literary
history, he has been learning more about Betty MacDonald, and he has
been thinking about ways to work with the heritage she left.

"Peter and Melinda are the kind of people who will embrace it, and welcome people," he said.

MacDonald connections
Vogelzang was also surprised to find a connection between MacDonald and his wife's family.

Both lived in Laurelhurst, a Seattle neighborhood where the McCoy family settled.

And
on his side of the family, who are Dutch, he does have some
agricultural background — he comes from a long line of pig farmers, he
said.

The son of a Dutch Christian Reform minister, he spent his
high school years in Sheldon, Iowa, where he did menial labor on farms,
mostly with livestock.

While Vogelzang has not seen "The Egg and
I" movie yet, he has read the book with an eye to what kind of
vegetables and fruits the family grew in the 1920s.

"If you read what they produced on the farm, it's quite remarkable," he said.

"If they can do it, we can do it."

Vogelzang
said that, in the end, the farm is a legacy for his niece and nephew,
who he hopes will get involved in 4-H, as well as take an active role in
the farm's operation.

In the meantime, he and the adults plan to
enjoy the peace and quiet, the fresh food and the sense of
accomplishment that comes from growing your own food.

In other
words, they plan to find the peace and happiness that eluded Betty
MacDonald when she came to the farm as a young wife with no idea of what
she was getting into.

"We've thought it out," Vogelzang said, "and we plan to be here a lot longer than Betty."

The legacy of The Egg and I
on East Jefferson County extends beyond the homestead in Chimacum into
the Victorian storefronts of Port Townsend 12 miles north.
Last modified: March 25. 2008 9:00PM

About Me

Betty MacDonald Fan Club, founded by Wolfgang Hampel, has members in 40 countries.
Wolfgang Hampel, author of Betty MacDonald biography interviewed Betty MacDonald's family and friends. His Interviews have been published on CD and DVD by Betty MacDonald Fan Club. If you are interested in the Betty MacDonald Biography or the Betty MacDonald Interviews send us a mail, please.
Several original Interviews with Betty MacDonald are available.
We are also organizing international Betty MacDonald Fan Club Events for example, Betty MacDonald Fan Club Eurovision Song Contest Meetings in Oslo and Düsseldorf, Royal Wedding Betty MacDonald Fan Club Event in Stockholm and Betty MacDonald Fan Club Fifa Worldcup Conferences in South Africa and Germany.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honour Members are Monica Sone, author of Nisei Daughter and described as Kimi in Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I, Betty MacDonald's nephew, artist and writer Darsie Beck, Betty MacDonald fans and beloved authors and artists Gwen Grant, Letizia Mancino, Perry Woodfin, Traci Tyne Hilton, Tatjana Geßler, music producer Bernd Kunze, musician Thomas Bödigheimer, translater Mary Holmes and Mr. Tigerli.